


The Book of Faith

by Seirissi



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Angst, Dialogue Heavy, Drug Abuse, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Other, Past Sexual Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 13:48:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15607620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seirissi/pseuds/Seirissi
Summary: The life and death of Rachel Jessop and her rebirth as Faith Seed





	The Book of Faith

It felt strange to be writing page after page of apologies. Especially when they were divided between people who didn’t give a fuck about her or the fact that they had made her who she was now, and the people who she’d long since burned bridges with that would never forgive her anyway.

And why should they? She’d lied. She’d stolen. Manipulated and abused trust and kindness shown to her. She didn’t deserve forgiveness for any of it, no matter how many excuses she might have under her belt.

Still, she wrote and wrote until she’d filled half a dozen scraps of paper, spilled her sins and her regrets in ink and tears, needing to find a final shred of catharsis, though it would never be enough to take away that all-consuming gnawing sensation that crept beneath her skin and made her want to take a blade and peel it off, dig down into the flesh to the bone and cut out every ache and itch. Not even the drugs could bring her relief from it now. They just dulled the sensation for a little while before it resurfaced and tore at every nerve ending in her body.

She just wanted to not feel anymore.

The girl didn’t even really have a specific plan. She was operating on impulse, a fresh fix ready to go once she’d finished her final confession, finding a bittersweetness in the fact that her life would end with the final night of the year, and the new one would be rung in clean, without her presence in the world.

The dose wasn’t enough to take her completely down. She just wanted to numb things a little so that she wouldn’t bottle it when the moment came. Leaving most of what few belongings she had left in the empty shell of her former childhood home, the place she’d been squatting in for a little over a week after finding all other doors finally closed to her, she set out walking toward the road that ran alongside the river, almost completely oblivious to the fact that it had snowed earlier, since she was already cold to the bone and her mind was floating on the heroin in her bloodstream, leaving her just focused enough to know where she was going.

The bridge wasn’t far. A few minutes even on foot.

A strange notion took her as she turned out onto it, unzipping her jacket and discarding it, and then the sweater she wore, and then her boots…

Before she knew it, she had reached the guardrail, a trail of crumpled clothing behind her as the biting cold of the night air finally hit her bare skin, making The girl shiver as she carefully climbed the rail over to the other side, edging her way along the outer ledge, using the supports to hold onto for the moment until she had settled on a spot that felt right.

It was too dark to really see the water below, but she could hear it, the sound soothing and almost welcoming despite looking like the black void of the unknown to her at that moment.

Although the ground was covered in a crisp white blanket of snow, the sky had cleared after the flurry, the expanse of the sky like velvet pin pricked with silver, each star looking like it had a halo that shimmered and danced as it stretched out over the snow-capped silhouette of the mountains and trees. It made the girl’s heart ache at the beauty of it and it moved her to tears at how small and insignificant she felt in the grand scheme of it all, and yet, it was almost so perfect to feel like she was somehow being returned to it.

While she wondered at the marvel of it, she failed to notice headlights approaching from the road, a car having driven past only to stop and reverse before turning onto the bridge and stopping a short distance away.

She was only pulled from her reverie by the sound of one of the car doors slamming shut and the soft crunch of footsteps in the pristine white, though she couldn’t make out the figure who approached cautiously, their form bathed in light, though for the longest moment, The girl didn’t realise it was from the headlights, instead thinking it was another beautiful image her mind had conjured from the drugs in her system.

Holding up a trembling hand against the blinding brightness, the girl eventually saw that the figure was a man, perhaps in his forties, his hair pulled back from his face and a kind but concerned look on his face as he paused a respectful distance from her.

“It’s awful cold out tonight, miss,” he commented, regarding her carefully so as not to spook her and send her slipping into the icy water below.

The girl didn’t respond, though the light from the car shining on her made it evident that she was in a great deal of distress, and the fact she seemed unfazed by the blisteringly cold weather only added to his concern over her state of mind.

Opening his hands out in a passive gesture, he took a step forward and then another.

“What’s troubling you, my child?” he asked gently, stopping again when he was close enough to get a better look at her. “What has you feeling like this is your only choice?”

The question was enough to evoke a reaction from her, the girls face crumpling as a sob escaped her almost-blue lips, but she made no other movements or effort to speak. Still, that was most than enough of an answer to have him closing the distance to the guardrail.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

The girl frowned in confusion at his inquiry but shook her head, absently clinging a little tighter to one of the support beams as she watched him climb over and slide out onto the ledge beside her.

“What’s your name?” he asked, another kind smile offered up, though the concern and caution never left his gaze even for a moment.

“R-Rachel…”

The word caught in her throat, barely making it out as more than a whisper.

“Hello, Rachel. My name is Joseph. It’s nice to meet you.”

“No, it’s not,” she answered back, a slightly scoffed huff carrying the response, acknowledging the fact that the circumstance they were currently in was about as far as could be from anything remotely considered nice.

Joseph gave a small nod, letting her dictate how she felt about their meeting at that moment. After a small pause, he licked his lips and cleared his throat before addressing her again.

“Care to tell me what you’re doing up here? I mean, I can see _what_ you’re doing, but I want to know _why_ you’re doing it. What has gotten so terrible in your life that _this_ seems like such a good idea?”

Any other time, Rachel might have been angry at the intrusion, but between the drugs and the unbearable loneliness she felt, it didn’t seem like such a bad thing to at least humour him.

“I fucked up,” she admitted, a pained smile-turned-grimace creasing her features. “I fucked up and now nobody cares, and I’ve got nothing. It’s all my fault.”

Joseph listened, remaining quiet as he let her speak. He’d heard words spoken to that effect in one combination or another by many others he’d found in such dire situations. They were rarely true, even if the one speaking them believed with all their heart that they were.

“I care,” he answered once he was certain she had finished speaking.

“You’re just saying that.”

“No. No, I’m not. You see, Rachel, I know how it feels to be where you are right now, because I’ve been there. It’s lonely and it hurts more terribly than anything you’ve ever felt before, doesn’t it?”

Rachel nodded, surprised to hear the genuine sympathy in Joseph’s voice. It was the first time in as long as she could remember that anyone had spoken to her like that; understanding, not judging. Someone who at that moment just saw a girl broken and upset, not all the awful things she’d done or had been done to her.

“What makes you think it’s your fault?”

“Because everyone hates me. I don’t blame them. I deserve it.”

“Why?”

That Rachel was at least open enough to hold a conversation with him was encouraging, though there was still a very real and present danger with them both standing out on that open ledge over the river, and Joseph understood that wouldn’t recede for the time being.

“I’m not a good person,” Rachel answered, scratching at the track marks on her arm without realising, accidentally drawing Joseph’s attention to them.

“Is there a reason you believe that? Or for why you feel the need to self-medicate?”

The pained expression returned to the girl’s face, again giving Joseph more of an answer than a few simple words would. He knew the reasons most turned down that path, including his own younger brother. Addicts most often became that way because they were desperate to fill the void in themselves that had been left by the way others had treated them.

“Who hurt you, Rachel?”

Her eyes widened, the last of the colour draining from her face as she faltered, almost slipping in the process, though Joseph was quick to catch hold of her arm and pull her back against the support beam.

Rachel didn’t want to answer, and she didn’t for several long seconds, her expression cycling through several emotions that collided with the memories that she didn’t want to confront.

“My family,” she confessed eventually, the words swallowed up in another sob. “I never got on with my momma, even when I was a kid, and my daddy, he…”

The sentence died away as the tears returned, Rachel breaking down despite fighting hard to swallow down the swell of pain that engulfed her.

Joseph closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh at confirmation of his suspicions. Though he felt anger at the revelation, it would do Rachel no good to express it in front of her while she was still clinging to the side of a bridge and risking hypothermia at the very least. Instead, his face fell back into a gentle, sympathetic expression to reassure her.

“That wasn’t your fault, Rachel. What your daddy did? That was his sin, not yours. No man should ever put his hands on his child. Only the sick and depraved do that.” He answered firmly, looking Rachel in the eye as he spoke, needing her to listen and hear the sincerity of it.

“You’re worth more than this. I know that you feel like that’s untrue right now, but I promise you, it’s not.”

“You don’t even know me. You don’t know what I’ve done,” Rachel argued, reluctant to consider that she had any other choice.

“I know you want the pain to stop.”

She couldn’t argue with that statement, but that was hardly the least obvious thing Joseph could have said to her.

“What if I told you that there’s another path open to you? One where you can be safe from pain and judgement, where you can recover and heal and be loved unconditionally?”

“I’d start wondering which one of us really is high as a kite,” she sighed, shivering violently against the cold now.

It was understandable that she’d be sceptical of what he had to offer. That was often the case with those who had lost any faith they’d had and fallen so very far from grace. It was his mission to save as many of them as he could though, and he would try his hardest to see that Rachel was no exception.

“I’m not selling you a fairy-tale, Rachel. I’m simply offering you help if you want it.”

Joseph noted that Rachel was getting dangerously close to needing medical attention and that time was rapidly running out.

“How about I make you a deal? We climb back over the guardrail and get down off this bridge, and I take you to that warm, safe place and show you that I’m telling you the truth? No catch. All I’m asking is for you to keep an open mind and postpone doing anything drastic just long enough to see, and if, after that, you decide you want to come back here and finish what you started, I won’t stand in your way, okay?”

It was getting harder for Rachel to think, and her body was starting to hurt, so she had to make a quick decision despite the possibly questionable judgement call on whether to trust a stranger, but she considered his point about simply just putting things off temporarily. What was a few more hours or so to her really if she was going to kill herself anyway?

It seemed as though her subconscious had made the decision for her, Rachel reaching out to him before she could stop herself, letting him pull her close and move back away from the edge,  Joseph carefully lifting her over the guardrail and carrying her back to the car where Joseph’s older brother was waiting, holding a heavy blanket that had been retrieved from the trunk before it was wrapped snuggly around the girl as she was placed into the back seat, her discarded clothing still lying in the snow as they drove away, over the bridge and heading North.


End file.
